Parshat Emor
Keep My
commandments and carry them out; I am God.
Do not profane My holy Name but let Me be
sanctified in the midst of the children of
Possibly, the meaning of this
verse is as follows: “Do not desecrate My holy name, for in public, I expect to be sanctified. Not that My name could really be desecrated
by whatever you do, since in the final analysis it is I Who make you totally
holy, not the other way around. In case
you were to argue that if I do not need
you, why did I bother to take ou out of Egypt
and perform all these miracles, remember that I did not do so like a human king
who has need for his subjects, but I did so to become your God, that is, for
your benefit…
Moshe Alshich
The ideal expressed by the words,
“Let Me be sanctified in the midst of the children of Israel,” in the text of
the Law, is to be kept alive symbolically by the nation’s daily offerings…and
brought to the nation’s consciousness again and again as the supreme object of
its mission. In a similar manner, by
composing and arranging the order of the synagogue service to parallel the
ritual of the offerings in the Temple…as the focus for our national assemblies
at Divine services to find ever-recurring verbal expression in the Kaddish and
the Kedushah (Berakhot 21b)
Samson
Raphael Hirsch
Now the question arises; How can man, an earthly creature, made of dust, profane or
sanctify God, the source of holiness? … The answer may be found if we
distinguish between the essential holiness of God which transcends time and
place, unaffected nd unchanged by them, and the
holiness of His Name, that is, the propagation of human acknowledgement and
recognition of His omnipotence and His holiness…this is the mission for which
we have been created.
Nachama
Leibovitz
Holiness as an accessible human
goal is at the center of the book of Leviticus, or if you wish, of the entire
Torah. All the rest is commentary: the details of how to prepare ourselves for
it and implement it in our lives. Holiness
is the Jewish answer to the problem of human existence. Mankind has always sought to ascribe some
metaphysical meaning to physical life, feeling that if man is not somehow more
than human, he is less than human…Judaism taught that it is holiness that can
add this extra dimension to our lives, not by escaping from life, but rather by
striving to “be holy” in this world and in this life.
Pinchas
Peli
When a famous architect announced,
“God is in the details,” Jews were not surprised. Over the centuries, we have developed a
fascination for the “details of the details,” in our sacred texts. Our sidra this week
exemplifies just such a detail…Rashi, provides the interpretation that has
proved lasting,…the commentators…(are) directed at the adults…(and) refers to
their responsibility to pass on their heritage to their children…